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iraittodl Bcfalntions of tfe Skeleton of air Miptov 



A REVERIE. 



CAPTAIN J. TRAIL, 

LATE OF THE BENGAL ENGINEERS. 



" SIC TRANSIT GLORIA" LOCI. 



EDINB r „GH.— MDCCCLIII. 



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Transmigration is considered by the Hindoos as an important 
tenet in their faith, and may lead even an unbeliever in such a 
doctrine, to indulge the fancy, by imagining what forms the spirit 
of any animal, living or dead, may have been in, or into what it 
may retrograde or progress. 

Visible and artificial transmigration and emigration, are also 
from time to time going on in other of Nature's departments, 
changing the appearances of places, of old and perhaps happy 
associations, yet, still all tending towards the progressive im- 
provement of the globe we inhabit, and the increasing civilization 
of its inhabitants. 

Pondering on such things for amusement, has caused me 
sometimes to wander into the regions of fancy, perhaps beyond 
what may be generally allowed ; it may, however, be more or 
less entertaining to give a rambling sketch of such migrating 
and transmigrating reveries, even if too fanciful — the grave, the 
gay, and imaginative, being all in some degree essential to a 
pleasurable existence ; and, in the first place, I may thus remind 
those for whom this reverie is principally intended, of an ancient 
abode, now much denuded of its air of antiquity, by some cruel 
architect, and every ivell-known ghost and " Will- o 1 -the- Wisp" 



4 PANBRIDE, 

being also drained away or ploughed down, (as in many other 
places and countries,) to make way for Ceres, with her fertile 
fields and Free Trade, which have no sympathy with, no room 
for, and permit of no Protection to such spectral occupants of 
an earthly and fruitful soil. Under the like treatment of such 
a goddess, and the advance of knowledge and science, the ghosts 
of our forefathers must soon die a second death, and eventually 
evaporate or become absorbed, like the bodies from which they 
sprung, or whose exhalations they were ! Though from the respect, 
fear, and awe, one may have felt for them, an occasional revel 
of the imagination may still be allowed, without the risk of their 
second resurrection ; but merely to recall the associations of former 
or youthful days and bygone scenes, and in such like, many 
others may have been somewhat similarly situated. The above 
may not be an inappropriate preamble to the following egotisticcd 
and domestic mythology, and to the sequent scenes. 

It was some twenty years ago, in the ancient and splendid 
city of Delhi, (the present and last capital of the Mogul Em- 
perors, and their waning Crescent,) that I had the skeleton of an 
Alligator presented to me by an Indian Prince, and which was 
said to have been killed in the Ganges ages before, and the 
dread destroyer of many a victim. I valued it much, and, after 
preserving it carefully for years in India, brought it home with 
me to Scotland, and gave it to my father, telling him of its fabu- 
lous history. He placed the skeleton in a conspicuous position 
in his old mansion, which had been also the abode of our fore- 
fathers. It was a fit sarcophagus for such remains, having many 
a story domestic and ghostly attached to it, being a Manse of the 
old school, in the close vicinity of a very antique country church 
and churchyard, with, on one side, a bum, and deep romantic 
den, in which there was also a peculiar projecting rock, called 
the " Fairy Castle,' 7 that was filled with fairies, whose elf-like 



TTS ANCIENT INHABITANTS. 5 

forms were often seen flitting to and fro in their nocturnal 
revels, by the light of the moon or a wandering " "Will-o'-the- 
AVisp," the inhabitant of a neighbouring marsh. On the other 
side of the antiquated church, there was a smaller rivulet, said 
to have run with blood for three days after a sanguinary battle, 
which actually took place there about eight centuries ago, as 
victorious St. Bride, and the spirit of the conquered Camus must 
well remember. Here, a few ghostly sentinels might still occasion- 
ally have been seen, watching the remains of their fallen friends 
or foes, and scaring away any unwary visitor of the night, who 
might intrude upon and desecrate such sacred soil. The stone 
coffins and skeletons of many of the slain, had, from time to 
time, been found, and thus kept alive the remembrance of such 
apparitions ; and the shades of evening scarce ever fell, without 
some reminiscence of such legends and surrounding dangers, 
which had also been well instilled into me and others by an 
old nurse, who was most expert in the use of these spectral 
weapons of attack and defence, to keep us all in due submission 
to her orders. 

After years of absence in the East, I again returned, and 
found my valued skeleton friend in the same place, evidently 
having been well guarded, both by old and young, with all of 
whom it was now a great favourite. Our venerable old parent 
had become especially attached to it, and had, I was told, looked, 
and still continued to look at it, as he first passed it in the 
morning, often with some slight observation regarding it, and 
his last words on passing at night, (particularly when a stranger 
might be guiding him,) were generally some remarks about the 
skeleton, its great size, in length, breadth, and thickness,— its fine 
but fierce-looking set of teeth, and its ancient amphibious place 
of abode — the sunny banks, and oft-times bloody bed of the 
Ganges ; and frequently making his grandchildren's or other 



b SPECTRES PAST AND PRESENT. 

youthful visitors' blood curdle by imagining to them, the number 
of men, women, or children, it had devoured during its long life. 
The Alligator was now, in fact, considered part of the establish- 
ment, and quite a domesticated ghost and family friend ! All 
this enhanced it more in my estimation, and probably prepared 
my mind for the following spectral reverie, and I had often 
wished to pry into the secrets of its " prison-house." 

It was the evening before I parted with my ghastly friend, 
probably for ever. The skeleton was before me in all its fierce- 
like and powerful proportions. I was ensconced in my old 
"Indian Chair" the fumes of a "Manila" were hovering in 
clouds above and around me, and I sat emitting the curling 
smoke, looking at the fire, and fancying its embers into all kinds 
of figures. A strangely mysterious hue soon began to pervade 
my mental frame. In this imaginative mood my eye rested on 
the skeleton, and musing on it with mesmeric gaze, through the 
mingled atmosphere, it seemed to expand in size, more like some 
Saurian of a former age, and to move its horrid form towards me ! 
I would have given the world to have fainted, so as to have got 
rid of the terrific sight, but vision seemed to become more and 
more acute. I had been accustomed, from infancy, to all kinds 
of ghosts, imaginary or otherwise. I had frequently seen them 
modestly apparelled in white sheets, others sitting or standing 
" in puris naturalibus" on tombstones or elsewhere, or taking 
exercise on pale horses, and death's head and cross-bones grinning 
at me, and all often distinctly animate, but silent as the grave 
from which they had arisen. This, however, seemed to be a real 
one, instinct with life, speech, and action, and of such an extra- 
ordinary form and size, — in fact, quite a transmigration of all my 
preconceived notions of such fearful spectres. Fly or rise I could 
not, mesmerism seemed to have fixed me in a place, without any 
power except that of sight or thought, (and, doubtless, it was a 



ALLIGATOR'S REVELATIONS. i 

kind of mesmeric sleep, as looking at any object intently for a 
length of time, has such an influence.) As I thus gazed upon 
my old and far travelled companion, it seemed to recognise in me 
its faithful friend and preserver, and to wish, before bidding adieu, 
to tell me something of its former erratic history, and, if possible, 
to penetrate the future. Long anxious as I had been for this, 
I shrunk from so strange an interview with my hitherto silent 
associate, and with tremulous voice repeated the well-known 
words — "Avaunt! and quit my sight ! Let the earth hide thee ! 
thy blood is cold, thy bones are marrowless, thou hast no specu- 
lation in those eyes, which thou dost glare with !" But it was 
not to be scared away, and still glared on. Thus, alarmingly 
alive to my situation, I was forced to listen to its revelations, 
and the ghost-like Alligator in an unearthly tone and oriental 
tongue, addressed me in the following strain : — 

" Celestial power, from high, bids us awake 
From silence dread of immemorial sleep. 
Heaven ! (thus from our dreamy maze arousing,) 
Reveal to us the past and future state. 
But lo ! what changes and what transmigration ! 
Of clime, of form, and feature ; from the time 
When last, w T e, in death's slumber fading, 
Our eyes, with lustre, gazed on other lands 
And streams, those hideous haunts, blood-stained. 
Of aged times, with crimes of deepest dye ! 
Here, home of peace, here, still fond memory clings : 
Panbride ! Let all thy ghosts, once more, arise 
From out their shades, and thus surrounding stand, 
And list, and learn from us their future fate. 
Hark ! to the voice, though from the sepulchre — 
The tomb of many bygone, voiceless years ! 



ALLIGATOR S REVELATIONS. 

Once spoken, dumb for ever we remain ; 
Inspired, we speak, so true, and truth remember. 
Mysterious master ! Yet, preserver kind, 
Still, ever linked by Transmigration's fate, 
How many a tearful tale could we unfold 
Of ages past? when in the turbid waters 
Of our native clime, or, slyly slumbering 
On ancient Ganges' banks, we watched our prey, 
Of fair woman's lovely, oriental form 
Sporting in the stream — nymph of sable hue 
And careless garb — her tresses, dark and wild, 
With holiest water dripping, and glistening 
Pearl-like in the burning zenith sun ; 
And most, her fragile form all covering : 
Oh ! feast for gods ! 

" For food like this a taste ! — 
Methinks, in some far distant age, a king 
We reigned — from Brahma's gods descended — 
(Whose high and long descent is lost in myths 
Of their mythology,) millions many 
Bowing to our will, and queens unnumbered ; 
Thus love, divided, died. 
Dangerous declivity from virtue's height ! 
We lulled the soul into forgetfulness ; — 
In banquets sumptuous, in music revelling. 
Xow, sad remorse — sad, living memory ; 
Oh ! thirst for blood — as victims one by one, 
Foul sacrifice, they fell, to fierce desire 
Of hunger, and our thirst insatiate — 
And warm their blood, like nectar, seemed to be- 
Thus, cannibal become ! how fury raged, 
And passions goaded to extremest hate 



ALLIGATOR S REVELATIONS. 

Of what we loved. — Ye heavens! protect us 

From such evil, and such dire calamities ! 

Remembrance cruel — yet could it ever last 

Unquenchable! (Oh ! fallen nature, thus, 

One moment's joy e'en such a thought to give!) 

Unquenched ! 'Tis true ! Scarce Terrors' King alone 

Could us subdue, by unsubdued desire. 

Of longing hunger, and of thirst combined, 

Expired our mortal frame, — just retribution ! 

What now in air or earth could us redeem ? 

Nought ! save by Transmigration's chastisement. 

Vengeance to satisfy justice divine! — 

Yes, animate, our spirit flees from fowl 

To flesh of direst kinds, still us to punish 

For crimes on earth and in the waters done. 

But thus, for heaven, we trust, to purify. 

For such reward, how strangely changed ! 

The scorpion vile, with sharpest, torturing sting, 

The cobra's venemous and deadly fang, 

Reptiles with clammy crawl and hateful look, — 

My sinful spirit has made animate. 

Their sight one's blood with curdling horror chills. 

Then from earth, on silky wing, ascending 

In vampire — scared by day — darkness its delight; 

Or oft, in still, faint twilight's darkening hour, 

Lulling to rest, on victim's blood intent, 

Cooling, with fanning wings, his sultry sleep, — 

A bloody, yet unconscious death he dies. 

Again, in airy feathered forms, we've flown ; 

In vulture bald, of keenest sight and scent, 

As, from afar, the foetid prey surveys ; 

Or, o'er the dying, exulting hovers, 



10 alligator's revelations. 

Till life extinct^in sweeping circles moves, 

Descending sure ; his ravenous hunger 

Feeds, till bloated; — sleeps, yet, to renew the feast. 

In nobler flight, on eagle's wings we've soared, 

More boldly pouncing on a living prey ; 

On lamb, defenceless, innocent, he swoops ; 

Or, oft in wrestling and in dubious fight, 

His foe o'ercome — he off to eyry flies 

With talons full, the young to feed. 

Flight, loftier still ! with proud and eagle gaze, 

The radiance of the sun to mock, beyond 

The highest clouds. 

" Again to earth descend. 
In elephant's gigantic form we've roamed 
Through jungle thickset and o'er burning plains, — 
Till by false friendship of two tame ones lured. 
Thus caught, to court of great Mogul we're sent, 
And high caparison'd that king to bear. 
Too near our pristine power and royal state, 
(Just like temptation when thus nigh 'tis brought, 
Old latent sin 'gain dangerous becomes.) 
Some mythic thoughts of what we once had been, 
Like lurid light, shot through our haughty mind, — 
Strange dreams of past caused envy to begin. 
Degraded now beneath the slimy snake ! 
We ! thus to carry kings, who king had been ! 
Death or revenge expiates such infamy ! 
Crushed once, yea twice, the thought, but up it rose, 
Like curling smoke, a vent to find 
In passions jealous and revengeful crime. 
Again we fell ! by murdering this king. 
Flee then temptation as your direst scourge. 



alligator's revelations. 1 1 

Thus doomed to retrograde for justice sake, 

Our spirit joined with brutes of nature cruel, 

Of forms most various, and of souls diverse. 

On land and water, did we fated reign, 

Treacherous, cold-blooded, and amphibious. 

Oh! vengeance just ! and still unsatisfied ! 

In every element we've been supreme, 

Save that of fire, the judgment's last reserve ; — 

But that, or heaven's kept for future fate — 

The Almighty's last eternal great decree. 

More scarce can be revealed to flesh and blood. 

But Granges' banks, its dark and turbid stream, 

(Through whose abyss we've oft-times wandered,) 

The shroud and pall of many a victim's been. 

Once, utterance more, Where can my spirit be ? 

And where now its mortal habitation ? 

Not again in scorpion's poisonous sting ? 

In flying forms, or brutes of savage race ? 

Or amphibious, odious, lizard tribe ? 

Such retrogressions may heaven not permit. 

No ! in thee, preserver, we wish it were 

Progressing onwards to perfection's height. 

It may be so ! a labyrinth we view ; 

'Tis long indeed, and darkly intricate, 

And opened cannot be to mortal eye. 

Yet, gleams of light at intervals appear, 

Some truth to shew amid the mighty maze. 

Tell why ? Strange gift to thee in India given ! 

For such a gift ! car'st thou so anxiously ? 

Till now, a lifeless, speechless skeleton ! 

And quick again to be for ever so ! 

Why bring it to thy Father's house and home ? 



12 THE ALLIGATOR'S FAREWELL. 

Of faith, so differing from our origin. 

Befriended there by youth and honoured age ; 

"Whilst thou revisitedst primeval climes, — 

Abodes, in which our race from myths began ! 

Yet, thou return'dst, a last adieu, to bid 

A friend farewell ! It may not ever be ! 

The future is not known till time reveal, 

And open wide the Portal of Eternity. 

Still, truth, most mighty, Transmigration is. 

In hope, then, live, — despair not ! — cast not down — 

Though parting now apparently for ever. 

Together most mysteriously we've lived ; 

Together most mysteriously we're bound; 

Together, yet, unto one essence linked; 

Together shall live in Divinity. 

But now, on earth, adieu ! My friend, farewell ! 

Companion Ghosts ! together now depart ! 

Again to shades of all forge tfuln ess, 

Till resurrection rouse us from our sleep, 

In silence, still, we rest — a " Skeleton." 

The very idea of such an absorbing and mingled futurity, and 
of such transmigrations, caused me to start from my visionary 
state with horror, muttering, — Heaven forbid ! And delighted 
I w 7 as to find myself in my own form, and not a cannibal king, 
or even an Alligator, with the prospect of promotion, by 
such changes, to more than pristine power and splendour, and 
with a happier nature ; and on looking around, I was yet more 
relieved to see the ghostly skeleton, like the spectres of yore, 
still and peaceful as the grave ! I candidly confess, however, 
that I parted with my transmigrating friend, with a deeper feel- 
ing of awe, regret, and attachment, than I had before felt for it. 



ORIENTAL SCENES. 1 ri 

1 was thus bidding the skeleton farewell, when the mental 
Telegraph was touched by some unknown power, and, with 
electric speed, wafted me on imagination's swift and airy wings 
to India, the land of the Alligator's birth, as if to shew me 
some proof of the truth of what the spectre had revealed. Such 
was quite in unison with the state of my feelings, and who would 
not delight to see or revisit ? even in vision, that splendid 
country, and behold the orient zenith or setting sun ? Or even 
to breathe the sultry but ofttimes balmy air, and view India's 
varied and varying features, — her fertile fields, — her arid plains 
and deserts, — her vast forests and thick-set impenetrable 
jungles, inhabited by savage brutes of every race, and birds of 
every hue, — her mighty and sacred rivers, these Brahminical 
Bethesdas, swarming with crime-stained devotees and amphi- 
bious monsters, and fleets unnumbered floating on their streams, — 
their waters at times gliding silently but rapidly along, washing 
away and carrying with them, the sins, spirits, and bodies of 
thousands, in their lengthened course, from the gushing source 
in Himaleh's highest heights, to the all-absorbing ocean ? At 
other times overflowing and spreading abroad like a sea, ferti- 
lizing the soil, forming islands of the continent, and a liquid 
path over the before arid ground, or again roused into turbid 
and tumultuous action, by the winds or sudden hurricane, or 
perhaps first startled by the forked flash and instantaneous roar 
of heaven's artillery, portending the coming storm and the 
wreck of numerous fleets, and the life and death struggle of 
their crews ! Who would not exult at the sight of her lofty 
abodes of eternal snow — the haughty Himalayas? Whose un- 
sealed heights o'ertop the mighty Chimborazzo, and sink the 
Alps into insignificance ! whose highest peaks, when not lost in 
clouds, seem to uphold the sky ; and undisturbed, yea, unap- 
proachable by living nature, listen only at intervals to the 



14 ORIENTAL SCENES. 

loud harmonies of the tremulous thunder of an avalanche, or 
howling storms, and echo and re-echo them from their rocky 
sides and gloomy caverns. Again, descending chains present to 
the panting soul every climate that may be wished for, from 
severest cold to torrid heat, with the various foliage and plants 
of every zone ; where the (here exotic and dwarf-like) ever- 
green rhododendrons are native trees, covered with their 
gorgeous crimson or snow-white flowers, and thickly planted, 
like a miniature forest, on the verdant slopes, among roses and 
other shrubs, and more earth-bound flowers and herbs, of nu- 
merous kinds, all vying in apparently unnatural luxuriance, and 
forming a living and busy haunt of Nature's choicest menagerie, 
and its music of earth and air ! Such delightful abodes are of 
frequent occurrence, with their background of majestic and 
gloomy pine forests, and ever-rising ranges of green and rocky 
and snow-crowned solitudes ; yet, even in these, surrounded by 
so many of Nature's nobility, one could never feel alone! In 
travelling among such multitudes of untrodden mountains, and 
their interminable windings, with their ascents and descents, all 
these scenes, with varying features, more frequently and on a 
grander scale, burst upon the sight, than could possibly occur in 
our smaller European chains, grand and glorious though they 
be, creating an excitement and a pleasure for the mind, all 
of which, combined with a highly salubrious climate, and the 
sudden change from the burning plains, often cause the elastic 
spirits and spring of health most rapidly to supersede the 
chronic melancholy and reluctant step of disease. 

Jn India, with such deeply contrasting variations of climate 
and of features, one may quickly transmigrate into the feelings 
of an Esquimaux or of an Indian. In a country like this, with 
all the wonders of Nature and many of Art, and where extremes 
thus meet, and the minds of its inhabitants are acute and active, 



THE WORLD'S TRANSMIGRATION. 15 

it can create but little wonder that imagination should have 
weaved its mythic and mystic web, and have caught in its 
meshes the susceptible yet subtle superstitions of a primitive 
age. And who would not luxuriate by penetrating into the 
past of this primeval antiquity ? Or, who does not glow with 
enthusiasm, when her enlightened future beams upon the still 
black and distant horizon ? India's primeval antiquity is a 
truth. When, with only her dark myths and mythology, mingled 
with some streaks of light, she became civilized while we were 
yet savage,— with her populous villages and agriculture, — her 
magnificent and teeming cities, — with man's handicraft almost in 
full perfection, while we were utterly untamed and unknown, 
and clothed in skins of beasts, while her inhabitants glittered in 
costumes of gold and silver of finest workmanship, — her beauti- 
ful temples towering to heaven, while an unhewn stone served 
our Druids for an altar ! yea, perhaps thousands of years ere 
they were known, and when Rome was yet unborn, and even 
Greece herself was still for ages in the womb of time ! 

India's enlightened future must and w 7 ill be a yet brighter 
and more enduring truth. When Brahma and the former all- 
conquering but now waning Crescent, shall make their millions 
bow before the sure, but apparently slow, advance of the Cross, 
and knowledge of every kind, thus breaking down the barriers 
which superstition and the accumulating clouds of ages have 
erected between the rising and the setting sun, and nations shall 
become encircled like the orb on which we dwell, as one family, 
and all of one right mind from east to west, like heaven's bright 
and cloudless canopy,— a divine and devoutly to-be-wished-for 
Transmigration. 



EDINBLKGn . T. COSlTABLE, PRINTER TO HER MAJESTY. 



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